The overall rate of debt accumulation in 2018 is 19.8 percent. The minister said that was driven primarily by the cost of the clean-up of the financial sector.

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“The rate of debt accumulation would have been 11.5 percent without the clean-up exercise,” said Ofori Atta.

The financial sector clean up

Seven of Ghana’s indigenous banks have collapsed since 2017 with the government through the Bank of Ghana (BoG) merging five out of the seven into a single bank under the name Consolidated Bank of Ghana.

The minister in his presentation said the collapse of the banks cost government an amount of $2 billion (GH¢9.9billion).

He said the government’s intervention which had saved deposits of some $2.2 billion (GH¢11billion) as well as 2,661 jobs was a bold measure.

He said that helped to restore the health and resilience of the banking sector and to clamp down on unlicensed deposit-taking financial houses.